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98-Yr-Old Activist Arrested In US Fossil Fuel Protest

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Poorvi Gupta
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Frances Morgan

Frances Crowe, a 98-year-old peace activist, recently gathered a group of eight people to stage a mock funeral near the site of the Kinder Morgan pipeline extension project in Sandisfield, Massachusetts. This led the Massachusetts State Police to arrest the old lady.

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She is a part of the Sugar Shack Alliance, an anti-fossil fuels activist group. The group entered a restricted area. They did not comply with the police’s demand to leave the area, which is why they had to arrest the woman, said the police.

The restricted area is the place where the fuel pipeline is going to be built and the group members carried the mock coffin and Crowe, who was in her wheelchair, to the site. Their aim was to bury the coffin in a hole--dug up for the pipeline, said the Sugar Shack Alliance, reported CNN.

"The police came and said if we went any further, they would arrest us. And we tried to go under the rope but we couldn't get under it, so they arrested us where we were," Crowe told CNN affiliate News10.

The eight other members of Sugar Shark Alliance were also arrested, apart from Crowe, under the crime of trespassing.

The activists want to prevent Kinder Morgan from constructing the pipeline extension in western Massachusetts as it will add four miles of natural gas pipeline to connect two existing lines.

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"We don't need to dig up the soil for a pipeline," said Crowe. "Solar and wind will take care of all of the energy needs for the state."

When Crowe was arrested, most of the other group members also volunteered to get arrested to show their support towards Crowe. "She's a 98-year-old dynamo," Sugar Shack Alliance member Vivienne Simon said. "She's really quite extraordinary."

This isn’t the first protest and arrest Crowe has been a part of. Earlier, the grandmother of five was arrested for protesting the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. It was during World War II that she turned into a peace activist and since then she has been continuously participating in various protests against several social issues –one of them is fighting nuclear power.

Picture credit- Getty Images

activists of World War II Frances Morgan peace activist Kinder Morgan Pipeline Massachusetts State Police
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